Lecture 4 2024 Filmmaking Lecture Notes PDF

LECTURE Images from: https://medium.com/@catherinewatts/filmmaking - 101-establishing-connection-with-your-audience-360d482605f2 a-Cinematography (continued) b-Narrative in film CHAPTER 6: Narrative Films. Telling Stories. Bordwel...

LECTURE Images from: https://medium.com/@catherinewatts/filmmaking - 101-establishing-connection-with-your-audience-360d482605f2 a-Cinematography (continued) b-Narrative in film CHAPTER 6: Narrative Films. Telling Stories. Bordwell, D and Thompson, K 2009. Film Art. An Introduction. 9th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill. AND Bordwell, D and Thompson, K 2010. Film Art. An Introduction. 10th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill. CHAPTER 5: The Shot: Cinematography CHAPTER 3: Narrative Form The long take: duration of the https://www.phillyvoice.com/south-jersey-high-school-lip-dub-flagged-sony-music-entertainment-possible-copywright/  REAL TIME? Filming in "real time" often implies that the shot captures actual duration. Typically, this is true. For example, if a runner takes three seconds to clear a hurdle, the filmed scene usually also lasts three seconds. However, filmmakers can override real duration through techniques like slow motion or fast motion. Less obviously, narrative films may not always equate screen duration with story duration, even within a single shot. Story duration usually differs from plot duration. Film techniques that shape screen time influence both story and plot duration. It's possible to compress story duration within a single shot. Compressing screen duration with A shot in The Only Son moves from night (5.207) to morning (5.208). (Bordwell and Thompson 2010:211)  Compressing screen time: changing settings or actors in a -continu scene “Other films use tracking movements to compress longer passages of time in a continuous shot. This sort of condensation has become easier with digital postproduction. The final shot of Signs moves away from an autumn view through a window and through a room, to reveal a winter landscape outside another window. Months of story time have passed during the tracking movement.” (Bordwell and Thompson 2010:211) For example, a child character may be shown in a particular action and emerge from this action as an adult (e.g. jumping into water and coming up again, or entering and leaving any setting that momentarily conceals a character). https://80smovieguide.com/the-blue-lagoon/ The scene is in the full film.  Functions of the Long Take A take is one run of the camera that records a sing “A long take is not the same as a long shot, which refers to the apparent distance between camera and object. To prevent ambiguity, we call a protracted shot a “long take” rather than a long shot. The director may choose between presenting a scene in long takes and presenting it in several shorter shots. When an entire scene is rendered in only one shot, the long take is sometimes called a sequence shot, a translation of the French term plan-séquence. In any film, most filmmakers mix edited scenes with scenes handled in long takes. This allows the filmmaker to bring out specific values in particular scenes, or to associate certain aspects of narrative or non-narrative form with the different stylistic options.” (Bordwell and Thompson 2010:212)  THE LONG TAKE Example of a long take from the James Bond film Spectre: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbqv1kbsNUY Play link Online source on long takes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9AEYFYPYTM  LONG TAKES AND EDITED Filmmakers may choose to create an entire film using long takes. Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope is well-known for having only 11 shots, each lasting between 4 and 10 minutes. Similarly, Miklós Jancsó’s films like Winterwind and Red Psalm feature scenes consisting of a single shot. In these cases, the long take becomes a significant part of the film's structure. In a long-take movie, editing gains dramatic impact. After a 7-8 minute shot, an elliptical cut (omitting further action) can be disorienting for the audience. Gus van Sant’s Elephant uses very long takes to follow students through hallways during a high- school shooting rampage. Elephant also presents its plot non-chronologically, with narration flashing back to earlier school days and the boys’ lives at home. When a cut interrupts a long take, the audience must pause to understand how the new shot fits into the story's chronology. (Bordwell and Thompson 2010:212)  DISCONTINOUS Discontinuous editing interrupts a long take. In a shot lasting two minutes, the camera follows Michelle into the library, where she starts reshelving books (5.123). Many of the long takes in Elephant frame the walking characters from behind. This conceals their facial expressions from us and emphasizes the school environment. Michelle turns as we hear a rifle being cocked (5.214). We expect a reverse shot to reveal the shooter. Instead, we get a flashback to earlier that day when the two boys showered together before going to school on their deadly mission (5.215). (Bordwell and Thompson 2010:213)  Continuity editing and Discontin (This will be continued in Lecture 6) “Continuity editing is an editing system used to maintain consistency of both time and space in the film. Continuity editing helps ground audiences in the reality of the film while establishing a clear and structured narrative. The goal of continuity editing is to make the mechanisms of filmmaking invisible as to help the audience dismiss disbelief more easily. Continuity editing, also referred to as three-dimensional continuity, is the predominant editing style among commercial Hollywood films. ( https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-continuity-editing-in-film/ ) Discontinuity editing: https://prezi.com/8btxgofrqlwh/continuity-and-discontinuity-editing/ Note: This presentation using Prezi changes our usual square and linear expectations of lecture slides.  NARRATIVE AS A FORMAL (Corrigan and White 2015:220) “While narrative is universal, it is also infinitely variable. […] The main features of any kind of narrative are the story, characters, plot and narration.” A Story is the subject matter or raw material of the narrative, with the actions and events ordered chronologically and focused on one or more characters. Stories are easy to summarise. The Plot orders the events and actions in the story according to particular temporal and spatial patterns, selecting some actions, individuals and events and omitting others. The plot thus creates a particular interpretation - visual and narrative - of the story.  NARRATIVE AS A FORMAL “We have anticipations that are characteristic of narrative form itself. We assume that there will be characters and some action that will involve them with one another. We expect a series of incidents that will be connected in some way. We also probably expect that the problems or conflicts arising in the course of the action will achieve some final state — either they will be resolved or, at least, a new light will be cast on them. A spectator comes prepared to make sense of a narrative film. As the viewer watches the film, she or he picks up cues, recalls information, anticipates what will follow, and generally participates in the creation of the film's form.” (Bordwell and Thompson 2010:72)  NARRATIVE AS A FORMAL “We have anticipations that are characteristic of narrative form itself. We assume that there will be characters and some action that will involve them with one another. We expect a series of incidents that will be connected in some way. We also probably expect that the problems or conflicts arising in the course of the action will achieve some final state — either they will be resolved or, at least, a new light will be cast on them. A spectator comes prepared to make sense of a narrative film. As the viewer watches the film, she or he picks up cues, recalls information, anticipates what will follow, and generally participates in the creation of the film's form.” (Bordwell and Thompson 2010:72)  NARRATIVE AS A FORMAL “The film shapes particular expectations by summoning up curiosity, suspense, and surprise. The ending has the task of satisfying or cheating the expectations prompted by the film as a whole. The ending may also activate memory by cueing the spectator to review earlier events, possibly considering them in a new light. When The Sixth Sense was released in 1999, many moviegoers were so intrigued by the surprise twist at the end that they returned to see the film again and trace how their expectations had been manipulated. Narrative form engages the viewer in a dynamic activity.” (Bordwell and Thompson 2010:72-73)  WHAT IS NARRATIVE? “We can consider a narrative to be a chain of events in cause—effect relationship occurring in time and space. A narrative is what we usually mean by the term story. Typically, a narrative begins with one situation; a series of changes occurs according to a pattern of cause and effect; finally, a new situation arises that brings about the end of the narrative. Our engagement with the story depends on our understanding of the pattern of change and stability, cause and effect, time and space. All the components of our definition - causality, time, and space - are important to narratives in most media, but causality and time are central. A random string of events is hard to understand as a story. “Consider the following actions: "A man tosses and turns, unable to sleep. A mirror breaks. A telephone rings." We have trouble grasping this as a narrative because we are unable to determine the causal or temporal relations among the events.” (Bordwell and Thompson 2010:72-73) https://www.rifemagazine.co.uk/2015/01/sound -set/  NARRATIVE CREATES A LOGIC Now consider a new description of these same events: "A man has a fight with his boss; he tosses and turns that night, unable to sleep. In the morning, he is still so angry that he smashes the mirror while shaving. Then his telephone rings; his boss has called to apologize.“ We now have a narrative. We can connect the events spatially: The man is in the office, then in his bed. The mirror is in the bathroom: the phone is somewhere else in his home. More important, we can understand that the three events are part of a series of causes and effects. The argument with the boss causes the sleeplessness and the broken mirror. The phone call from the boss resolves the conflict; the narrative ends.” In this example, time is important, too. The sleepless night occurs before the breaking of the mirror, which in turn occurs before the phone call; all of the action runs from one day to the following morning. The narrative develops from an initial situation of conflict between employee and boss, through a series of events caused by the conflict, to the resolution of the conflict. Simple and minimal as our example is, it shows how important causality, space, and time are to narrative form. (Bordwell and Thompson 2010:73)  NARRATIVES: some FORMAL P Narratives can cue us to draw parallels among characters, settings, situations, times of day, or other elements. The documentary Hoop Dreams exemplifies the use of parallels.It follows two high school students from a black neighborhood in Chicago who aspire to become professional basketball players. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuemPpgc-7s The film invites viewers to compare: The personalities of the two students. The obstacles they face. The choices they make. Additional parallels are drawn between: Their high schools. Their coaches. Their parents. Older male relatives who pursue dreams of athletic glory vicariously. Each parallel line of action is organized by time, space, and causality. Parallelism adds complexity to the film, making it richer than if it had focused on only one protagonist. (Bordwell and Thompson 2010:73-74)  CHRONOLOGY OF THE ST You have a story, such as a romantic comedy that follows the development of a love affair. Your problem is: How to tell it? One approach is to start at the beginning, when the partners meet. From there, you could trace the action chronologically: Showing them falling in love. Experiencing separation. Meeting other people. Remeeting and eventually reuniting as a couple in marriage. Alternatively, you might consider breaking chronology. For example, start your film on the couple’s wedding day. Then, flash back to the beginning to show how they met. From there, you can trace the love affair through its ups and downs. (Bordwell and Thompson 2010:74)  TIME PERIODS AND SEQUE “While you’re speculating about shuffling time periods, you might pause again. See Pulp Fiction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGpTpVyI_OQ Wouldn’t it be more engaging to start not with the wedding but with the couple’s “darkest moment,” the scene in which it seems they’re never going to get together? Then flashing back to earlier, happier days could increase the suspense. Will they be reunited? That makes the wedding a sort of epilogue rather than the big event framing the overall action. Each choice brings up further choices. If your flashbacks skip around a lot, you might worry about viewers’ losing their bearings. So to help out, you might add superimposed titles identifying the time and place of the scene.” (Bordwell and Thompson 2010:75) (Bordwell and Thompson 2010:74) COMPLEX TIME SCHEME (Bordwell and Thompson 2010:81)  EXAMPLES OF FILM PLOTS MANIPULATED CHRONOLO Jerusalema The English Patient Slumdog Millionaire Letters from IwoJima Pulp fiction A break in chronology draws audience attention to the inter-relatedness of events, characters and time periods.  TIME STRUCTURE IN STOR Time structure is just one of the storytelling choices you need to consider. Another key choice is deciding from whose viewpoint the story will be told. You could limit the perspective to one character, showing only what they know about the unfolding action. 500 Days of Summer is an example, focusing on the man's viewpoint as he falls in love with Summer. Alternatively, you could use a more common approach by showing both members of the couple, whether they are alone or with friends. You might also include scenes with parents, co-workers, and others. This broader approach allows the viewer to see the central relationship within a wider context. (Bordwell and Thompson 2010:75)  CAUSE AND EFFECT “If narrative depends so heavily on cause and effect, what kinds of things can function as causes in a narrative? Usually, the agents of cause and effect are characters. By triggering and reacting to events, characters play roles within the film's formal system. Most often, characters are persons, or at least entities like persons. In any narrative film, either fictional or documentary, characters create causes and register effects. Within the film's formal system, they make things happen and respond to events. Characters’ actions and reactions contribute strongly to our engagement with the film.” Thus, we identify with some of the characters because the director plans for us to take their perspective. (Bordwell and Thompson 2010:77)  TIME, CAUSE AND EFFE “Causes and their effects are basic to narrative, but they take place in time. Here again the story/plot distinction helps clarify how time shapes our understanding of narrative action. As we watch a film, we construct story time on the basis of what the plot presents. Even if events are shown in chronological order, most plots don't show every detail from beginning to end. “We assume that the characters spend uneventful time sleeping, traveling from place to place, eating, and the like, but the story duration containing irrelevant action has simply been skipped over. For example, Hitchcock’s North by Northwest: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053125/ “ The plot may also present events out of chronological order. Another possibility is to have the plot present the same story event more than once, as when a character recalls a traumatic incident. Such options mean that in constructing the film's story out of its plot, the viewer is engaged in trying to put events in chronological order and to assign them some duration and frequency.” (adapted from Bordwell and Thompson 2010:79)  TEMPORAL ORDER, TEMPO Temporal Order: How Are Events Sequenced? Filmmakers can choose to present events out of story order. A flashback, like the ones we proposed for our hypothetical romantic comedy, is simply a portion of the story that the plot presents out of chronological sequence. Flashbacks usually don’t confuse us, because we mentally rearrange the events into chronological order. Even a simple reordering of scenes can create complex effects. In general, a film’s plot selects only certain stretches of story duration. Temporal Duration: The filmmakers might decide to concentrate on a short, relatively cohesive time span, or they might let their plot unfold across many years, highlighting significant stretches of time in that period. Citizen Kane shows us the protagonist in his youth, skips over some time to show him as a young man, skips over more time to show him middle-aged, and so forth. The sum of all these slices of story duration yields an overall plot duration.” See the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dxh3lwdOFw (Bordwell and Thompson 2010:80)  NARRATIVE PATTERNS O Linear Chronology: Selected events follow each other through a forward movement in time The logic and direction of the plot commonly follow a central character’s motivation (= ideas and emotions). The character follows an object, belief, or goal of some sort, and the events of the plot show how the character’s motivating desire affects or creates new situations or actions. Due to the linear plot structure, the relationship between the narrative opening and closing is central to the temporal logic of the plot. The ending may lead to closure (happy/unhappy ending) or an ambiguous ending, leaving the viewer to decide with the character what was fantasy and reality (e.g. in The life of Pi) (adapted from Corrigan and White 2015:230-232) Examples: Black Panther, Gran Torino, many action movies.  FILMS USE VARIOUS NARRATIV Plot chronologies using flashback and flashforward A narrative flashback creates a retrospective plot, telling of past events from the perspective of the present or future, e.g. in The Godfather: Part II, where the modern story of the mobster alternates with the flashback story of the his father, decades earlier. The comparison of the different histories draws parallels and suggests differences between the two men’s effect on their Mafia family. A narrative flashforward leaps ahead of the normal cause-and-effect order to a future incident. This creates tension or mysterious suspense that can then be resolved later in the film. Other nonlinear chronological orders may vary between past, present and future events in a less logical manner to create a particular viewing experience. The characters may try to recall lost memories by intentionally “going back into the past” to experience lost details (Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind), or documentary or newsreel footage can be inserted into the fiction film to historically position the plot and to create backstories for the characters or events (e.g. Hiroshima mon amour) (adapted from Corrigan and White 2015:232-233)  FILMS USE VARIOUS NARRATIV The deadline structure enhances tension and excitement in the plot. It accelerates action toward a central event or task that must be completed by a specific moment, hour, day, or year. This creates suspense and anticipation throughout the narrative. Run Lola Run exemplifies this, as the protagonist has 20 minutes to find a large sum of money to save her boyfriend. The film intensifies this structure by showing three versions of the character's run, leading to three possible endings. Parallel plots involve a double plotline, suggesting that the two plots are simultaneous and will intersect at some point. The film alternates between actions or subplots happening at the same time, implying they are interrelated. Examples include intertwining a private story with a public one, a crime story with a love story, or a personal quest with an apocalyptic scenario (e.g., Ocean’s Eleven, Jerry Maguire). (adapted from Corrigan and White 2015:234)  NARRATIVE DURATION AND Narrative duration refers to the length of time within which an event or action is presented in the plot. Narrative frequency indicates how often those plot elements and repeatedly shown. A countdown for a bomb detonation, or other impending disaster (e.g. a train without brakes, any set time that is unchangeable in the plot) drives the action and builds suspense. This creates narrative suspense as the plot spends screen time on the bomb and preparations to defuse it and prevent the disaster. The continual return to showing the mechanism (or racing train etc.) demonstrates a high narrative frequency. The drawn-out time showing characters defusing the bomb is stretched by showing many actions that take more screentime than the 30 seconds, or other short time, before the disaster is bound to happen. Scenes of character emotions and developments may also add to this by using extended psychological time.(adapted from Corrigan and White 2015:234-235)  CULTURAL AND SOCIAL RESON The film can, in contrast to the above, accelerate time by adjusting the duration of screen time for an event or person. A rapid montage of images can condense months and years by only showing short clips or even photographs of past events to build a history of the protagonist, instead of showing all these events. The narrative frequency of a person, prop or action on screen determines their importance for the plot. This draws viewer attention to significant events, gestures, phrases, places or actions. Narrative locations refers to spaces constructed through the course of the narrative as different mise-en-scenes. (e.g. indoors, outdoors, natural spaces, artificial spaces, outer space) Stories and their characters explore these spaces, contrast them, conquer them, inhabit them, leave them, build on them and transform them. In consequence, characters and stories change and develop as part of the formal shape of the places, but also as part of their cultural and social significance and connotations. They continuously interact with the spaces.  CULTURAL AND SOCIAL RESON Together with narrative action and characters, the cultural and social importance of chosen locations offers layers of meaning. Historical locations may set plot action either in a particular period or as a historical background to the present events. Fictional locations may also acquire this quality, when events occur in well-defined locales, such as Kansas or Oz, or Pandora, or Gotham City. https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Gotham_City An ideological location in a narrative describes spaces that communicate distinctive social values or ideologies, these may be political or philosophical or gender politics. These may be determined in a location when characters establish the space for a particular sense of identity, such as male- dominated spaces, comfortable spaces or gender- threatening spaces, or class-related identities. A prison or other institutional setting may suggest an ideology of hierarchy and values, leading to a conflict of interests. (adapted from Corrigan and White 2015:235-236) CULTURAL AND SOCIAL RESON Psychological location in a film narrative suggests an important correlation between a character’s state of mind and the place they inhabit at that moment in the story. This may be a real space or a fantasy space when a character undergoes some psychological distress (e.g. using a white background for dream scenes). Symbolic locations are spaces transformed through spiritual or other abstract means related to the narrative (e.g. Castaway, religious or spiritual plots such as Da Vinci’s demons). (adapted from Corrigan and White 2015:236-237)  NARRATIVE FRAMES First-person narration uses the perspective of a protagonist in the film and their voice. The narration is identified by the voice of a single individual who speaks in the first person singular. This is a literary convention, and becomes complex in film. Alternatively, the film may use a first-person narrator outside the story. Voiceover using the pronoun “I” creates a structural point of view that lends the narrative this person’s perspective. The full subjectivity of the person or character is the only viewpoint that carries the narrative. Usually, voiceover suggests the narrator’s “eyes and mind” (e.g. Apocalypse now, read pages 240-241) In many films, this perspective is used in selected scenes to suggest a character’s inner thoughts, but rarely throughout an entire film. A narrative frame at the start of end of a film may introduce a first-person narration, and may indicate the intended audience for the story (e.g. children, a future generation, an absent person). A film’s frame indicates the crucial perspective and logic that define the narration. (e.g. Sunset boulevard, The ice storm, The usual suspects) (adapted from Corrigan and White 2015:236-237)  OPENINGS, CLOSINGS AND PATTER Openings “The opening provides a basis for what is to come and initiates us into the narrative. It raises our expectations by setting up a specific range of possible causes for what we see. The first quarter or so of a film’s plot is sometimes referred to as the setup.Very often, the film introduces the characters and their situations before any major actions occur. Alternatively, the plot may seek to arouse curiosity by bringing us into a series of actions that has already started. (This is called opening in medias res, a Latin phrase meaning “in the middle of things.”) Black Panther opening scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cwPRZzcB5o Fast n Furious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rliur0ejYG8 (Bordwell and Thompson 2010:85)  OPENINGS, CLOSINGS AND PATT Openings The viewer speculates on possible causes of the events presented. An in medias res opening grabs our interest, but […] sooner or later the filmmaker has to explain what led up to these events. https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/in-medias-res-definition-examples/ Opening scene of Avatar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2SzO8AwAas In either case, some of the actions that took place before the plot started—often called the backstory— will be stated or suggested so that we can understand what’s coming later. The portion of the plot that lays out the backstory and the initial situation is called the exposition. Usually exposition takes place early in the film, but the filmmaker may postpone chunks of exposition for the sake of suspense and more immediate impact.” (Bordwell and Thompson 2010:85) (Bordwell and Thompson 2010:85)  THE DEVELOPMENT SECTIO Development Sections: “As a film’s plot proceeds, the causes and effects create patterns of development. Some patterns are quite common. Change is essential to narrative, and a common pattern traces a change in knowledge. Very often, a character learns something in the course of the action, with the most crucial knowledge coming at the final turning point of the plot. Another common pattern of development is the goal-oriented plot, in which a character takes steps to achieve an object or condition. Plots based on searches would be instances of the goal plot. Time may also provide plot patterns. A framing situation in the present may initiate a series of flashbacks showing how events led up to the present situation. The plot may also create a specific duration for the action — a deadline.” (Bordwell and Thompson 2010:85)  CLIMAXES AND CLOSING Climaxes and Closings: “A film doesn’t simply stop; it ends. The plot will typically resolve its causal issues by bringing the development to a high point, or climax. In the climax, the action is presented as having a narrow range of possible outcomes. Because the climax focuses possible outcomes so narrowly, it typically serves to settle the causal issues that have run through the film. Emotionally, the climax aims to lift the viewer to a high degree of tension. Since the viewer knows that there are relatively few ways the action can be resolved, she or he can hope for a fairly specific outcome. In the climax of many films, formal resolution coincides with an emotional satisfaction.” (Bordwell and Thompson 2010:86)